Russia: We Destroyed Ukraine’s Patriot Batteries! Satellite Images: Not So Much.
Russia is doing what it always does: Lying about its battlefield achievements. Recently they claimed to have taken out a Patriot missile defense system sent to Ukraine. YouTuber Suchomimus has looked into their claims by comparing them with several relevant satellite images of the site and determined: Not so much.
Update on “the May airstrike in which Russia claimed to have hit two Patriot SAM launchers: we’ve had some newly released satellite imagery which does show signs of damage at the air base in question. However, is not as it seems.”
Satellite images show that one of the two impact craters were present before the Patriot system was installed.
A time sequence shows that the other crater was not in any of the locations where newly dug emplacements showed where new Patriot equipment was stationed.
The U.S. admitted that a Patriot was damaged by the attack, very possibly from shrapnel, but that it was minor and quickly repaired. Satellite image analysis supports this claim.
“While these satellite images are interesting, and they do confirm an impact at the airport, they don’t show evidence of a destroyed Patriot.”
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 4th, 2023 at 2:16 PM and is filed under Media Watch, unions, video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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5 Responses to “Russia: We Destroyed Ukraine’s Patriot Batteries! Satellite Images: Not So Much.”
This would be a much more believable story if the Ukrainians provided ground level photographs of the Patriot battery. These satellite images have much lower resolution than typical commercial satellite images.
Even if the images are legitimate and properly interpreted, the Ukrainians admit that at least one Russian missile managed to get through a $ 50 million ripple fire barrage. This does not bode well for Ukrainian AA/AD.
“the Ukrainians admit that at least one Russian missile managed to get through a $ 50 million ripple fire barrage.”
While that’s true the difference to me is that the $5 million per missile they fired at the threat was considerably cheaper than the replacement cost of the entire system. Either way it doesn’t actually matter. Missiles or entire systems, it’s not them paying the replacement cost anyway.
[…] RUSSIA SAYS A LOT OF STUFF: Russia: We Destroyed Ukraine’s Patriot Batteries! Satellite Images: Not So Much. “The U.S. admitted that a Patriot was damaged by the attack, very possibly from shrapnel, but […]
Digging in this battery in small area leads me to believe they view some form of ground assault a bigger threat than the missiles. This system should be jumped at least every day. Guess air defenders are lazy in every military.
“Jumping the system” is something that was discussed heavily during certain bits of my professional career, ‘cos the guys doing most of the digging in are Engineer troops.
The thing is, you have to balance out “What might we lose and break, just moving things around…” and “What security benefits are there to moving around?”
As well, there are only so many good locations to erect a missile system. You have to factor in radar coverage, flight paths, things like that. You get everything dialed in, and you’re sometimes better off just leaving things in place and taking the chance you’re making it easier to hit you.
Ain’t none of this crap as simple as it looks from the outside. None of it; the things that you and I might think of as “reasonable” often have complicating factors we don’t know about, because we aren’t specialists in that field.
Crap I could tell you about things I learned the hard way, working with other branches. What’s common knowledge and perfectly sensible in one field doesn’t always translate into others. At. All.
Ask me sometime about the pain in the ass it can be to site retrans sites, where you have to get to locations where there are a.) no roads, and b.) no means of building them. Spent a period doing that, and the things I learned about commo constraints were both educational and highly counter-intuitive.
This would be a much more believable story if the Ukrainians provided ground level photographs of the Patriot battery. These satellite images have much lower resolution than typical commercial satellite images.
Even if the images are legitimate and properly interpreted, the Ukrainians admit that at least one Russian missile managed to get through a $ 50 million ripple fire barrage. This does not bode well for Ukrainian AA/AD.
“the Ukrainians admit that at least one Russian missile managed to get through a $ 50 million ripple fire barrage.”
While that’s true the difference to me is that the $5 million per missile they fired at the threat was considerably cheaper than the replacement cost of the entire system. Either way it doesn’t actually matter. Missiles or entire systems, it’s not them paying the replacement cost anyway.
What’s another couple billion between friends.
[…] RUSSIA SAYS A LOT OF STUFF: Russia: We Destroyed Ukraine’s Patriot Batteries! Satellite Images: Not So Much. “The U.S. admitted that a Patriot was damaged by the attack, very possibly from shrapnel, but […]
Digging in this battery in small area leads me to believe they view some form of ground assault a bigger threat than the missiles. This system should be jumped at least every day. Guess air defenders are lazy in every military.
“Jumping the system” is something that was discussed heavily during certain bits of my professional career, ‘cos the guys doing most of the digging in are Engineer troops.
The thing is, you have to balance out “What might we lose and break, just moving things around…” and “What security benefits are there to moving around?”
As well, there are only so many good locations to erect a missile system. You have to factor in radar coverage, flight paths, things like that. You get everything dialed in, and you’re sometimes better off just leaving things in place and taking the chance you’re making it easier to hit you.
Ain’t none of this crap as simple as it looks from the outside. None of it; the things that you and I might think of as “reasonable” often have complicating factors we don’t know about, because we aren’t specialists in that field.
Crap I could tell you about things I learned the hard way, working with other branches. What’s common knowledge and perfectly sensible in one field doesn’t always translate into others. At. All.
Ask me sometime about the pain in the ass it can be to site retrans sites, where you have to get to locations where there are a.) no roads, and b.) no means of building them. Spent a period doing that, and the things I learned about commo constraints were both educational and highly counter-intuitive.